Peter Hargreaves: no deal Brexit is best option

A no deal Brexit is the ‘best option’ for the UK after it leaves the European Union, according to Peter Hargreaves.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder attacked the government’s negotiating team, saying ‘there isn’t one person on our Brexit team that has a clue’. He also added that none of the negotiators ‘know the art of the deal’.

Guaranteeing his ‘entire wealth’ of £3.6 billion on no deal being the best option, he said: ‘No deal would give us free trade with Europe because the three biggest economies in Europe, outside Britain, are huge exporters to the UK.

‘That’s Germany, France and Italy. And those three economies would absolutely demand free trade from the EU. I guarantee my entire wealth that we would get free trade.’

It comes after trade secretary Liam Fox put the likelihood of failing to reach an agreement at 60/40.

On the government’s negotiating team, Hargreaves (pictured) said: ‘None of them know the art of the deal. And the amazing thing is they’ve never ever asked any of the people that really are great businessmen.

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‘They’ve left it to civil servants and not one of them has done anything of any worth in their lives.’

He added: ‘They haven’t got the people to negotiate it who are really sold on it. Theresa May was a remainer, the people that are doing the transactions don’t want Brexit. We should have a team that want Brexit and want us out of the EU.’

Hargreaves also lambasted Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, calling a government under him ‘an absolute, unbelievable, total disaster’ and claiming the pound would ‘collapse’ with an ‘enormous brain drain from the UK’.

Hargreaves said: ‘He’s never even considered, even contemplated, he would actually have to make decisions. All he’s done is voted against everything. So we have no idea what this guy is about.’

But he added that Corbyn would be a ‘great tonic’ for the UK as it would ‘tell everybody that socialism’s bad’.

On Blue Whale, he said: ‘It’s going to be a force in fund management within a few years. The young chaps there, I would bet they know more about some of the companies in which they invested than most of the people that work in those companies.’

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